Healing Yemen – Protecting and Safeguarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in the Republic of Yemen

€ 20,99

“This war has to end.” These words by President Joe Biden about the terrible conflict in Yemen are welcome. But they are easier to say than to make happen. Since 2015, fighting in Yemen has left a quarter of a million people dead and 3 million displaced. War crimes were committed on all sides, while the world looked on as a humanitarian disaster unfolded. As the UN struggles to raise funds for its humanitarian programming for 2021 – even from countries such as the UK and the Gulf monarchies, which play an active role in the conflict – the situation is in danger of getting worse. The Republic of Yemen is currently a battleground between regional actors and their proxies that vie for supremacy among the sandy ruins of some of the oldest civilisations on Earth. President Biden has promised to end arms sales and US participation in the Saudi/United Arab Emirates-led war in Yemen. This is to be welcomed, as it means that Mohammed bin Salman – the Saudi crown prince whom US intelligence holds complicit in the gruesome murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi – will probably be out of the loop for some time; and hopefully also be brought to justice for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi - as well as for crimes he committed in Yemen, such as the killing of innocent civilians. He, along with the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed, conceived the war, played the west off against Moscow to secure UN cover for the carnage and then occupied strategically important pieces of Yemeni real estate. Therefore President Biden should promote a new security council resolution to replace the current one that unrealistically envisages the Houthis surrendering to a transitional government that operates out of a Saudi hotel. Foreign forces ought to leave. What is required is a negotiated process that includes homegrown voices from every side of the conflict – including Houthis, southern separatists and the Muslim Brotherhood. Yemen’s diverse communities have traditionally been able to compromise. Current leader of the Hadi-led government is President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and leader of the Houthi movement (officially called Ansar Allah) is currently Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi. Hence it is imperative that all parties involved work together to end the war and the humanitarian crisis in the region; so that Peace, Prosperity and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) - including gender equality and women's rights - can finally be restored and upheld in the Republic of Yemen.